GLEP: 15
Title: Gentoo Script Repository
Version: $Revision: 1.1 $
Last-Modified: $Date: 2003/10/01 13:00:23 $
Author: James Harlow ,
Status: Draft
Type: Standards Track
Content-Type: text/x-rst
Created: 30 Sep 2003
Post-History: 30-Sep-2003
Abstract
========
There is currently no central repository for scripts that are useful
in administering a Gentoo system. This GLEP proposes a way to deal
with this issue.
Motivation
==========
There are many small tasks on a Gentoo system that can be made much
easier and fault-proof by scripting. However, not everyone has the
experience to write such scripts; those that do have the choice of
tracking down scripts on developer's webpages or with a search engine,
or writing them themselves, often duplicating effort that has been
already done by other people.
A better solution would be to have a repository of these scripts on dev.gentoo.org.
Specification
=============
A scripts@gentoo.org email alias would be setup and forwarded to the team that
will accept and publish these scripts to the website. The team will need
access to a portion of the website, but just enough to add the scripts, and
update links from the main "scripts" page. I would propose it be a
subproject of the tools or base top level project. The scripts team would
need commit access to gentoo/xml/htdocs/proj/en/[base|tools]/scripts/.It
shouldn't increase the load on gentoo.org significantly.
Rationale
=========
A repository on gentoo.org would address the problem of not having a
central point where all the scripts reside; and as gentoo.org is
trusted by most gentoo users, it would also solve the problem of
running scripts without knowing their exact effect. Further trust
could be generated by having developers sign their scripts and
uploading the signatures in parallel.
Periodically, a snapshot could be taken of the repository, the scripts
QA'd, and a package made and distributed.
Having a well-publicised script repository would also ease major
changes to the distribution, and could be a first line of defence to
provide workarounds for security problems in packages.
Backwards Compatibility
=======================
Not a problem for this GLEP.
Copyright
=========
This document has been placed in the public domain.